The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side,
Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933

December 1, 2016 • $1.00
Volume 86 • Number 48

Peace in the Middle East?
How about fixing the heat?
Kushner tenants skeptical
By Joaquin Cotler

P

resident-elect
Donald
Trump hopes that —
where so many others
have failed before — his Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, using his
political savvy and business connections, will be able to bring
peace to the Middle East.
Jared Kushner, the young real
estate mogul from Livingston,

N.J., is being considered for a
“special envoy” position, The
New York Times reported last
week. This role, an unofficial post
within Trump’s administration,
would specifically task Kushner,
35, with making peace between
the Israelis and the Palestinians.
“He knows the region, knows
the people, knows the players,”
kushner continued on p. 5

Toledano 12th St. renters
try to light a fire under
landlord to get back gas
By Amy Russo

H

ow did you cook your
turkey this Thanksgiving? For most of the
residents at 325 E. 12th St., it
wasn’t with an oven. For the
past six months, the East Village building’s apartments have
lacked gas, just one sign of the
declining living conditions that
tenants say have prompted them

to sue their young landlord, Raphael Toledano, and his Brookhill Properties.
A legal agreement reached
Nov. 22 between Toledano and
the tenants states that the gas
will be turned back on by Jan. 31.
However, a spokesperson from
Brookhill Properties did not
comment for this article regarding the restoration of the gas.
toledano continued on p. 10

Photo by Bob Krasner

Love trumps hate : A young girl — fittingly wearing a hear t shir t — posted a thought
on a stick y note on the “therapy wall” in the 14th St./Union Square subway station.
The panoply of post-its has been an outlet for straphangers’ fears, anger, uncertainty and even hope, following Donald Trump’s election.

South Village’s last leg is
on track for landmarking
By Dennis Lynch

T

he Landmarks Preservation Commission
heard its last round of
remarks from the public concerning the proposed SullivanThompson Historic District —
a.k.a. phase three of the South
Village Historic District — on
Nov. 29. The agency’s 11 commissioners could vote as soon
as Dec. 13 whether to landmark the roughly 10-block

area bounded by Broadway
and Sixth Ave. and W. Houston and Canal Sts.
The majority of the roughly
three-dozen residents, property
owners, business owners and
other stakeholders that testified
supported the district’s designation. The area contains buildings
from as early as the turn of the
19th century, but also includes
numerous tenement buildings
where immigrants from around
the world and particularly Eu-

rope first lived.
The Greenwich Village
Society for Historic Preservation has spearheaded the designation campaign over the
last decade. So far, the first
two-thirds of the proposed
area has been landmarked.
G.V.S.H.P. Executive Director
Andrew Berman evoked the
neighborhood’s
immigrant
connection in his testimony.
district continued on p. 4

Piece of the rock: Our man in Standing
Rock, Jean-Louis Bourgeois, gave us the update on
the increasingly tense and dangerous situation as the
Sioux and water protectors continue to face off with
law enforcement over the Dakota Access Pipeline. We
didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know if the concert last Sunday, headlined by
Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, would even happen after the violent clash the previous weekend, that
left a Bronx woman with a shattered forearm after
she was hit by a concussion grenade. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The concert
took place last night and it was superb,â&#x20AC;? Bourgeois reported. However, as for the battle the previous week,
the Village activist said he chose to pass on that one.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;I tried to be heroic back in 1968 at Columbia â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I
was terrified back then,â&#x20AC;? he reminisced of the student
uprising that was met by head-cracking cops. Bourgeoisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s companion out on the reservation, Anthony
VanDonk, a local Lenape from Brooklyn, was in the
thick of it on Nov. 20. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There was tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, concussion grenades,â&#x20AC;? he told us. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My friend and I were on the bridge
and we were tear-gassed. Hundreds of people were
treated for hypothermia and for being pepper-sprayed
and tear-gassed.â&#x20AC;? State and county police have told
the protesters to clear out by Dec. 5. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The word is that
nobodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to leave,â&#x20AC;? Bourgeois said. So whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
going to happen? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nobody knows,â&#x20AC;? he said.

out our article in this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s issue about how the garden volunteers buttonholed Mayor Bill de Blasio outside The Cooper Union to hand-deliver an invitation
to him to visit the Little Italy green space and see how
special it is and why everyone wants to save it. That
is...except for Chin. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the primary proponent for
doing the garden in, pushing a plan to replace it with
affordable housing. Community Board 2 has repeatedly urged Chin to accept an alternative site they have
identified for the affordable housing. Her refusal to
bend on this issue â&#x20AC;&#x201D; after having rubbed voters in
the north end of her district the wrong way on the
N.Y.U. expansion plan and Soho business improvement district â&#x20AC;&#x201D; may well see more candidates pop
up. Oh yeah, Marte is the guy in the articleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photo
holding the gardenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s banner along with Terri Cude,
the new chairperson of Community Board 2.

Marte joins the par-taay: Well, it looks
like City Councilmember Margaret Chin could
have at least one challenger in next yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s election.
Christopher Marte, a young activist who grew up on
the Lower East Side, has filed to create a campaign
committee. In September, he ran in a three-way race
for Democratic State Committee on the Lower East
Side, but was edged out by Lee Berman. Marte (pronounced â&#x20AC;&#x153;mar-taayâ&#x20AC;?) is a committed supporter of the
Elizabeth St. Garden. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe us, check

Trump done it: Sharp-eyed reader Wayne
Smith wanted to know why a caption in last weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
issue said â&#x20AC;&#x153;GAGâ&#x20AC;? stands for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gays Against Gays.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;A
Trump front group?â&#x20AC;? Smith wondered. Yes, probably,
it is. ... But, no, in this case, actually just an embarrassing typo. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an acronym for Gays Against Guns.
Must have been those darned Russian hackers!

Word from Westminster: Our article last
week about Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Westminster Management kicking off its new
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Westminster Caresâ&#x20AC;? volunteer effort stated some
Kushner tenants who attended said they could not
talk about building issues with staff. However, a Westminster rep contacted us, saying: â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had more than
20 Westminster staff members at the event who were
available to, and did, discuss issues with tenants.â&#x20AC;?

Foul: Our article last week about Niketown incorrectly stated it opened Nov. 1. It opened Nov. 18.

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About three dozen people turned out for Tuesday’s Landmarks Preser vation Commission hearing on the final
phase of the proposed South Village Historic District. Most were in favor of designating the district.

S. Village’s last leg on track for landmarking
district continued from p. 1

There are few parts of New York where
one can walk down streets and see what an
immigrant community at the turn of the last
century, during the last great wave of immigration to New York City, looked like,”
Berman said. He added that many of the
tenement buildings still feature their original architectural details.
Many supporters testified on the need
to protect the South Village’s neighborhood character in the face of encroaching
development projects in surrounding areas.
Councilmember Corey Johnson and representatives from Assemblymember Deborah
Glick and Borough President Gale Brewer
spoke in support of the landmarking.
A handful of people spoke against the designation. Two building owners told the commission that they would not be able to afford
to maintain their buildings or upgrade them
to make a profit if they were landmarked.
The owners of landmarked buildings
have to present any alteration plans to the
commission, which in most cases requires
hiring a lawyer, and the commissioners can
reject any alteration if they feel it dilutes the
historic quality of the building. That usually
means spending more money on historically
appropriate materials.
Steven Hamilton, who owns and lives
at 198 Sixth Ave., asked that the commission to remove his block, between Prince
and Spring Sts., but landmark the rest of
the district. Hamilton and his wife invest a
part of their profits from rent on upgrading
the building, which he claimed is not historically significant. To use more expensive
materials would make those upgrades costprohibitive, he maintained.
“

“I’ve talked to different people who have
landmarked buildings, who have told me
that it significantly increased the cost of any
sort of treatment they want to do, so that
would be a burden on us,” he testified. “We
barely get by as it is. We manage through
rents to do $5,000 or $6,000 worth of improvements a year. That’s about how much
we would spend on legal fees — we’d just
not be able to do anything.”
Hamilton added that he felt left out of
the conversation and that proponents of the
landmarking had not taken into account
the new development that took place on his
block over the last half decade.
It is not unusual for some property owners to oppose landmarking over concerns of
the cost of maintenance and the effect it can
have on property values. However, the commission does not require that all property
owners support a designation.
The N.Y.U. Furman Center for Real Estate
and Urban Policy found in 2014 that New
York City properties in historic districts and
those calendared for potential designation
sell for 20 percent more than those outside
historic districts — except in Manhattan.
According to the Furman Center study,
landmarking boosts the values of existing
buildings, but the value of the land under
most buildings in Manhattan contributes a
more significant share of the overall property
value than it does in outer boroughs, where
the existing structure on the property contributes more heavily to the property value.
The “hit to land values outweighs the
boost to structure values,” the study found.
The city’s Independent Budget Office,
however, found in a study of historic district
properties between 1975 and 2002 that those
properties increased in price at a “slightly

greater rate” than those outside districts. But
the I.B.O. report said there was not enough
evidence to conclude that historic district
designation caused that increase.
But G.V.S.H.P.’s Berman said that designating a district will be a financial benefit
over time because it protects property owners from large-scale construction that could
hurt their property values.
“Part of what you’re benefiting from is
you share in perpetuity this special and distinctive neighborhood character,” Berman
explained. “There is not a risk of that disappearing or being ruined by some insensitive,
out-of-context development on the block.”
Landmarks law also has a built-in “hardship provision” that obligates the commission
to remove alteration restrictions on a building if the owner can prove that he or she cannot make a profit or do what is necessary to
maintain the building, Berman added. Those
cases are rare and usually end with a full demolition of a particular building.
L.P.C. will reconvene on the SullivanThompson Historic District on Dec. 13.
Berman said he is cautiously optimistic that
they will vote on the designation that day,
because a few days later the full City Council will vote whether to allow a transfer of
air rights from Pier 40 across the West Side
Highway to a site for a massive development
project at what is now the St. John’s Center
at 550 Washington St. The developers are
also seeking a residential rezoning for the
site, which is just a few blocks away from
the edge of the proposed historic district.
Some believe that landmarking the final
unprotected section of the South Village is
the only way to check what they believe will
be a wave of development that the Hudson
Square megaproject could spur.
TheVillager.com

Mideast peace? How about
maintenance? tenants ask
Kushner continued from p. 1

Trump said of Kushner during an interview with Publisher Arthur Sulzberger,
Jr., and Times editors and reporters. “I’ve
had a lot of, actually, great Israeli businesspeople tell me, you can’t do that, it’s
impossible,” he continued. “I disagree, I
think you can make peace.”
Kushner, Trump’s apparent go-to person for advice on U.S.-Israeli relations,
wrote his father-in-law’s speech to the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, back in March. In that
address, Trump said that Obama and
Clinton have treated Israel “very, very
badly,” and he also echoed some historically Republican talking points.
“We will move the American embassy
to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” Trump promised, “and
we will send a clear signal that there is no
daylight between America and our most
reliable ally, the State of Israel.”
Kushner reportedly wrote the speech
with help from the New York Observer’s
then-editor, Ken Kurson, a longtime critic of the Obama administration’s treatment of Israel. Once headed by notorious
Trump antagonist Graydon Carter, the
New York Observer was purchased by
Kushner in 2006. The paper endorsed
Trump in the G.O.P. primary, but did
not endorse him in the general election.
(It was recently announced that the New
York Observer would drop its print edition; it is now just called Observer.)
A Harvard graduate, Kushner has powerful connections in the business world,
including PayPal founder and investor
Peter Thiel and Alibaba founder Jack
Ma; his own wife, Ivanka Trump; and
his venture-capitalist brother, Josh Kushner. Jared Kushner’s contacts in Silicon
Valley enabled him to revamp the Trump
campaign’s data analytics. He hired
audience-targeting specialists, including
the conservative Cambridge Analytica,
to identify voter subgroups, and rebuilt
Trump’s social-media campaign. According to Forbes, the team raised more than
$250 million during the last four months
of the campaign, largely from targeted
outreach, after Kushner took the digital
reins this past summer.
In an effort to counter criticism that
Trump’s campaign pandered to white
nationalists and anti-Semites, Kushner
penned an op-ed for his Observer, “The
Donald Trump I Know,” in hopes of convincing the world otherwise.
Leon Neyfakh, now a staff writer at
Slate, began working for the Observer in
2007 under Kushner. He believes that the
Observer’s owner, whom he calls “dumb
but calculating, cruel but fundamentally
feeble,” co-opted the paper when he became involved with the campaign. Neyfakh described the newspaper’s content
TheVillager.com

around election season as a “kind of deadening background noise meant to drown
out the boss’s evil deeds,” and he described
Kushner’s involvement in Trump’s bid for
president as “the opportunistic gamble
of a crow pursuing the shiniest object in
sight.” That pursuit kept many of Kushner’s most vulnerable clients in the dark.
While Kushner was writing Trump’s Israel speech, Kushner’s real estate company
Westminster Management was in and
out of court over its inability — or refusal
— to address basic living conditions in
several of the young mogul’s East Village
buildings, including long-term lack of services, including heat and cooking gas, plus
electrical outages. For all his digital-media
savvy, Kushner had a hard time setting up
a system that worked for the people living
in his buildings.
According to several tenants, even after Westminster lost in court, it still failed
to provide adequate service for Kushner’s
lower-income residents, and treated them
like second-class citizens. David DuPuis,
a longtime rent-stabilized resident of a
Kushner-owned building, 118 E. Fourth
St., mentioned that Westminster introduced a Web payment system that’s only
available to high-rent tenants.
“They only allow the market-rate tenants to use it,” DuPuis said, “not the rentstabilized or senior citizens.” He said that
“losing” rent checks is one of the many
ways Westminster has systematically harassed tenants like him and his neighbor
Jen Hengen — both of whom took Westminster to court and won, after enduring
what they called unlivable conditions for
six months.
“As rent-stabilized tenants,” Hengen
said, “we endured a lot of ignoring and
contempt, because they really wanted to
make room for tenants who would pay
$3,000 a month for one of our studios.”
“They separate us as people — not the
sort of actions that come in handy when
making peace deals,” DuPuis said, referring to Kushner’s possible new role in the
Middle East.
DuPuis and Hengen have been public
with their statements in the past, in hopes
of bringing attention to the plight of many
of Kushner’s tenants. But now Hengen is
concerned about speaking out.
“I’m a little nervous with Trump in
charge,” she said. “I have a spotless record professionally, but who knows what
dirt will come from speaking to media?
Giuliani and all the rest — it’s a scary
time for New York.”
But DuPuis is less apprehensive about
voicing his opinion.
“I hear from the market-rate tenants
that the Web site is mismanaged at best,”
he said. “Lost receipts. No one arrives to
make repairs. They can’t manage a Web
site, so I’m not sure how he will manage
the Middle East.”

HOLIDAY
HAPPENINGS
Holiday Toy Drive
Through THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2016
Brighten the holidays for local children by donating a new,
unwrapped, nonviolent toy or book. Purchase a toy online
via the Holiday Toy Drive’s Amazon Wish List at
amzn.to/2fhoV1p before December 11. Alternatively, drop
off a toy in person at any of the drop box locations listed at
www.nyu.edu/nyu-in-nyc before December 15. The Holiday
Toy Drive is sponsored by NYU and the 9th Police Precinct.

Tree Lighting
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2016, 6:00 pm
Children and grown-ups are invited to gather by the arch in
Washington Square Park for the lighting of the Christmas
Tree presented by the Washington Square Association.
The Rob Susman Brass Quartet will perform and there
will be a special visit from Santa. The Washington Square
Association will provide complimentary songbooks.

Christmas Eve Caroling
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2016, 5:00 pm
Meet by the arch in Washington Square Park for caroling
on Christmas Eve with the Washington Square Association!
The Rob Susman Brass Quartet and song leaders will
lead revelers in singing familiar holiday favorites. The
Washington Square Association will provide complimentary
songbooks.

The Washington Square Association, Inc. founded in 1906, is one of the city’s oldest
community organizations. For over 90 years, it has sponsored carol singing under the arch.
Other activities concern the continued improvement of Washington Square, the Washington
Square Music Festival, and the fostering of neighborhood spirit.

December 1, 2016

5

Police Blotter
No exit!

Back to the grind

A man created a minor emergency
at the Lenox Health Greenwich Village
stand-alone emergency department, at
30 Seventh Ave., early on Mon., Nov.
21, according to police. At 3 a.m., custodians and police asked the man to
leave the hospital vestibule multiple
times but he said he wouldn’t go. When
police tried to place him under arrest,
the man pulled his arms away, twisted
his body and then locked his arms
together, so that he couldn’t be handcuffed.
Manuel Viturro, 51, was arrested for
misdemeanor resisting arrest.

Police said that around 2 p.m. on
Fri., Nov. 25, a man was spotted trying
to steal a bike in front of 304 Bleecker
St. He was allegedly using a batterypowered grinder to cut the lock, so he
could swipe the bike from a signpost.
Pedro Martinez, 55, was charged
with misdemeanor criminal possession of stolen property. Police
said they had arrested him before.

‘Hard’ Houston St.

A police officer observed a man pacing in front of 18 W. Houston St. early in
the morning of Thurs., Nov. 17. Around

3:20 a.m., the officer approached the
man and saw he had a hook blade fixed
to his belt. Queried about it, the man
responded, “I use the knife for protection. These streets are hard.”
Tevin Goring, 23, was busted for felony criminal possession of a weapon.

Double phone filch
A man told police his two cell phones
were stolen at Gaslight bar, at 400 W.
14th St., early on Thurs., Nov. 17. He
said that around 3:30 a.m., his iPhone
6 Plus and iPhone 7 Plus — with a total
value of $1,600 — were removed from

his pocket. Using the “Find My iPhone”
app, police located the phones in another man’s pocket.
Isaac Batista, 38, was arrested for
felony grand larceny.

Perry St. robbery
Police said that on Thurs., Nov. 24,
at 12:15 a.m., a 22-year-old woman
and a man entered the vestibule of a
residential building on or near Perry St.
The man removed the victim’s bag and
fled eastbound on Perry St. The woman
reportedly was not injured.
The suspect is described as about age
29, 5 feet 9 inches tall and 210 pounds,
last seen wearing a black jacket, white
shirt, blue jeans and black shoes.
Anyone with information is asked
to call the Police Department’s Crime
Stoppers Hotline, at 800-577-TIPS, or
for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
Tips can also be submitted by logging
onto the Crime Stoppers Web site,
www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or by
texting them to 274637 (CRIMES) and
then entering TIP577. All tips are confidential.

Sprayed in her face
According to police, on Tues., Nov.
15, at 2:15 a.m., a 33-year-old woman
was in the vicinity of Horatio and Greenwich Sts., when a man approached her
and sprayed an unknown substance in
her face. The man then removed the
woman’s bag from her shoulder and
fled toward Jane St. E.M.S. responded
and transported the victim to Lenox
Hill Medical Center.
The suspect is described as 5 feet 9
inches tall, 230 pounds and last seen
wearing a black jacket and blue jeans.
Anyone with information is asked to
contact the Crime Stoppers Hotline.
All tips are confidential.

Missing Riis resident
On Nov. 21, police reported that
Odell Pamias, 74, a Jacob Riis Houses
resident, was missing. It was not clear
when she was last seen at her home, at
465 E. 10th St., Apartment 7A. As of
Wed., Nov. 31, police said there was
no update and she was still missing.
Pamias is 5 feet 4 inches tall, 150
pounds, with brown eyes and short
black hair. It’s unknown what she
was last seen wearing. Anyone with
information is asked to contact Crime
Stoppers.

Emily Siegel
and Lincoln Anderson
6

December 1, 2016

TheVillager.com

ADVERTORIAL

TOP DRIVER DISTRACTIONS
Using mobile phones

Leading the list of the
top distractions behind the
wheel are mobile phones.
Phones now do more than
just place calls, and drivers often cannot pull away
from their phones, even
when driving. According to
the California Department
of Motor Vehicles, studies
have shown that driving
performance is lowered
and the level of distraction
is higher for drivers who
are heavily engaged in cell

TheVillager.com

phone conversations. The
use of a hands-free device
does not lower distraction
levels. The percentage of
vehicle crashes and nearcrashes attributed to dialing is nearly identical
to the number associated
with talking or listening.

Daydreaming

Many people will admit
to daydreaming behind
the wheel or looking at a
person or object outside of
the car for too long. Per-

haps they’re checking out
a house in a new neighborhood or thought they saw
someone they knew on the
street corner. It can be easy
to veer into the direction
your eyes are focused, causing an accident. In addition
to trying to stay focused on
the road, some drivers prefer the help of lane departure warning systems.

Eating

Those who haven’t quite
mastered
walking
and

chewing gum at the same
time may want to avoid
eating while driving. The
majority of foods require a
person’s hands to be taken
off of the wheel and their
eyes to be diverted from the
road. Reaching in the back
seat to share some French
fries with the kids is also
distracting.
Try to eat meals before
getting in the car. For
those who must snack
while en route, take a
moment to pull over at

a rest area and spend 10
minutes snacking there
before
resuming
the
trip.

Reading

Glancing at an advertisement, updating a Facebook status or reading
a book are all activities
that should be avoided
when driving. Even pouring over a traffic map or
consulting the digital
display of a GPS system
can be distracting.

December 1, 2016

7

Indian Point may be K.O.’d by ruling: Activists
By Paul DERienzo
Environmental activists are cheering a unanimous decision by New York
State’s highest court that upholds the
right to review applications for renewal
of federal licenses to operate two Indian
Point nuclear power plants for another
20 years.
The plant’s owners, Entergy Corporation, had argued the plants’ license
to operate was grandfathered when the
state adopted the Coastal Management
Program in 1982. The decision does
not close the plant, but its relicensing
has been opposed by Governor Andrew
Cuomo and environmentalists.
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board has been holding up consideration of the Indian Point relicensing
applications pending a determination
on the Coastal Management Program
review. Cuomo has not moved directly
to prevent the N.R.C. from relicensing
the facility.
In its Mon., Nov. 21, decision, the
Court of Appeals wrote, “Entergy’s current application for a license to operate
the Indian Point nuclear reactors for an
additional 20 years is a new federal action, involving a new project, with different impacts and concerns than were
present when the initial environmental
impact statements were issued over 40

years ago.”
Indian Point’s two remaining operating reactors reached the end of their
original 40-year operating licenses in
September 2013 and December 2015.
In a statement on Nov. 21, New York
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
said, “The court has now made it clear
that policies protecting New York’s
critical coastal resources are a necessary factor in considering whether to
relicense the Indian Point facility.”
“This is a monumental day,” Paul
Gallay, president of New York-based
Riverkeeper, declared. “This decision
effectively stops the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from relicensing Indian Point.” Gallay added that, if the
plants are closed, electric power needs
can readily be met by a combination of
other regional power plants, existing
surpluses and growing solar power installations in the state.
However, Entergy countered with
its own statement, saying “Notwithstanding today’s court decision, we do
continue to believe we will ultimately
be successful in obtaining a C.Z.M.
[Coastal Zone Management] permit
and relicensing Indian Point. The facility continues to safely operate in a
manner that is fully protective of the
Hudson River and in compliance with
state and federal law.”
The Coastal Management Program

Rober t F. Kennedy, Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, left,
and Paul Gallay, president of Riverkeeper, aboard a New York Water
Taxi ferr y at Riverkeeper’s “State of the River” event in April. They
were kicking off the group’s 50th anniversar y celebrations. R.F.K., Jr.,
who is Riverkeeper’s prosecuting attorney, spoke about the organization’s origins as the Hudson River Fishermen’s A ssociation, a group of
commercial fishermen concerned that the pollution of the river was
affecting their livelihood. Over the years, Riverkeeper has worked to
rid the river of harmful PCB’s, sought to block ill-considered development, and worked to close the aging Indian Point nuclear power plant
on the river’s banks. Today, the Hudson’s pollution levels are down,
and swimming and boating in the river are back. Riverkeeper helped
inspire the waterkeeper movement, protecting tens of thousands of
miles of rivers and coastlines around the world. In a bit of American
histor y, Kennedy also noted that, while New England is generally regarded as the area richest in Revolutionar y War histor y, the conflict
actually centered around New York because of the might y Hudson River’s strategic impor tance.

is administered by New York’s Department of State and requires projects
to comply with protection of fish and
wildlife resources, in order to prevent
or minimize environmental damage.
The stretch of the Hudson River where
Indian Point is located is a tidal estuary, where the freshwater mixes with
saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean.
Opponents of the relicensing point to
mishaps over the past decade that they
say show the nuclear plants — located
less than 50 miles from New York City
— are unsafe. In 2010, 600,000 gallons
of radioactive steam was released into
the atmosphere. Earlier this year, radioactive water leaked into the groundwater. A transformer blew up in 2010
and another failed in 2015, causing a
shutdown of one of the reactors.
“This is a happy day for New Yorkers, for the Hudson, and for the safety
and security of our country,” Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr., president of Waterkeeper
Alliance, said. “Indian Point is the oldest, most dilapidated, mismanaged and
dangerous nuclear plant in America.”
The New York Times has implied
that Indian Point could be “America’s
Fukushima,” referring to the 2011 di-

sastrous meltdown of nuclear reactors
struck by a tsunami in Japan, which was
the world’s worst nuclear disaster since
Chernobyl. Cuomo wants the Buchanan, N.Y., plant closed and has called the
leaking of tritium-contaminated water
from it an “unacceptable” failure.
Because the plant is cooled by up
to 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River
water each day, the plant kills about
1 billion fish and other aquatic organisms a year. Environmental groups said
studies suggest that the Indian Point reactors are a factor in a general decline
in the river of shad, white perch, smelt
and other fish species.
A proposed natural-gas pipeline is
also being planned to run underneath
the property, within 100 yards of the
nuclear plants. That pipeline, built by
Spectra Energy, has been opposed by
environmental activists, and 15 were
arrested at the offices of U.S. Senator
Charles Schumer last month protesting
the project, which would bring fracked
gas from Pennsylvania into New England. Riverkeeper and the activists
want Schumer to come down firmly on
the issue and join them in opposing the
renewal of Indian Point’s license.
TheVillager.com

Gardeners really give
it to mayor — an invite

Photo courtesy Friends of Elizabeth St. Garden

Elizabeth St. Garden suppor ters outside The Cooper Union two weeks
ago after delivering an invite to Mayor de Blasio.

By Lincoln Anderson

O

n the chilly morning of Mon.,
Nov. 21, more than two-dozen
members of Friends of Elizabeth St. Garden ringed The Cooper
Union before Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
major speech on how the city will resist
Donald Trump’s efforts to deport illegal
aliens. They had fanned out around the
building so as not to miss the mayor.
As de Blasio came walking from the
north end of the university’s Foundation Building at Astor Place down to
its entranceway, he was swarmed by
the garden volunteers, who personally
hand-delivered to him an invitation to
visit the Little Italy green oasis.
On “The Brian Lehrer Show” on
WNYC, in response to a request that he
do so, the mayor had said that he would
“happily, happily” visit the garden. So
the volunteers wanted to follow up with
a formal invite.
“The mayor said that he would visit
this park, and we are calling on him
to see for himself how important this
space is to the community,” Jeannine
Kiely, president of F.E.S.G., said. “We
will fight the destruction of this park in
every way possible.”
Councilmember Margaret Chin is
pushing a project for affordable senior
housing on the treasured garden, which
is located between Prince and Spring
Sts. and covers 20,000 square feet. Developers’ responses to the city’s R.F.P.
(request for proposals) for the project
are due Dec. 14.
Opponents note that the project will
also include space for luxury retail.
Residents from Little Italy, Nolita,
Soho, Noho, Chinatown and the East
and West Village have rallied to the
cause of saving the garden. Community Board 2 has identified an alterative
TheVillager.com

site in Hudson Square, at Hudson and
Clarkson Sts. — less than a mile away
— that could support at least five times
as much affordable housing.
Yet, Chin has stubbornly turned a
deaf ear to the community’s pleas, and
has refused to consider moving the project to the West Side site and save the
rare spot of public greenery in openspace-starved Little Italy.
According to the Friends, the garden offers more than 200 free public and attracts
more than 100,000 visitors annually.
The gardeners charge that Chin, in
2013, included the Elizabeth St. Garden site “in a backroom deal, with no
public review whatsoever, as part of the
Seward Park Urban Renewal Area development in Community Board 3 on
the Lower East Side.”
All the area’s other politicians support
the C.B. 2 alternative proposal. However, Borough President Gale Brewer,
a strong Chin ally, has been on the
fence, hoping that a compromise can be
worked out. The project’s R.F.P. stresses
that 5,000 square feet of the site must
be left open for public use. But the opponents note that current zoning already
mandates that.
More to the point, they call Chin’s
plan “a betrayal” of a previous agreement with the city. A public school and
its playground previously occupied the
southern part of the block, including the
garden. In 1981, when 62 percent of the
existing lot was designated for the LIRA
affordable housing project, an agreement was reached that the rest of the
site would be maintained “exclusively
for recreational use.”
Chin did not respond to request for
comment by press time. Garden advocates plan to press their cause at another
rally, Wed., Dec. 7, at noon, outside 250
Broadway.
December 1, 2016

9

12th tenants try to light a fire under Toledano to get gas
Toledano continued from p. 1

Stephanie Rudolph, the lead attorney
representing the tenants, stated that
while Brookhill C.E.O. Toledano could
file for an extension of the deadline, failure to act would result in a series violations, as well as the possibility of being
held in contempt of court or, in a rare
worst-case-scenario, jail time. If Toledano decides to ask the court for more
time to restore the gas, Rudolph may oppose his motion.
Attorney Rudolph noted that Toledano has blamed Con Edison and the city’s
Department of Buildings for the delay in
turning the tenants’ gas back on.
Brookhill Properties issued the following statement to The Villager: “We
have been working tirelessly with all
parties, including our contractors, Con
Edison, the New York City Department
of Buildings and our tenants, to repair
and remedy this situation. Since 2015,
D.O.B. has b[r]ought about a major
increase in inspections, many resulting
in gas shutoffs, and this was the case at
325 E. 12th St. Recognizing the inconvenience to tenants, Brookhill Properties has offered a rent abatement and
stovetop burners to all tenants in this
building. Brookhill will continue to diligently work with Con Edison, D.O.B.
and our contractors toward the safe
completion of all necessary work to restore gas to all of our tenants as soon as
possible.”
Aside from the absence of gas in the
building, tenants have reported a series of additional issues that appear to
have gone unattended. A tour inside the
building last week revealed worn and
chipped walls, plus a pile of debris in a
vacant apartment that can be seen from
across the courtyard and through the
window. Residents call these “dumpster
apartments.”
Liz Haak, who has lived in the tenement for 43 years, said the trash has been
there since last spring, adding that the
city has told them that tenants can only
complain about their own apartments,
not vacant units, such as this one.
“The sense seems to be that they’re
running out of money,” said Haak, who
doubts Brookhill will order a dumpster
and cart out the rubbish. A Brookhill Properties spokesperson would not
comment about the presence of socalled “dumpster apartments.”
Haak is one of the few residents with
an electric stove, so fortunately she does
not need to petition for gas. Nevertheless, her concerns remain high. Haak
worries about the possibility of lead dust
being present, since she verified through
city records that the building is 100 years
old. And after the building failed a pressure test in October, tenants learned all
the gas lines need replacement.
“They didn’t tell the tenants directly,”
Haak noted of that problem.
It has also been reported that tenants
have been encouraged to leave their

10

December 1, 2016

Photo by Sarah Ferguson

State Senator Brad Hoylman with tenants of 325 E. 12th St. at a protest outside the building t wo days before
Thanksgiving. The building has been without cooking gas for half a year. The tenants waved frozen turkey
dinners to help drive home the message.

Photo by Amy Russo

The corner of a wall in a hallway
inside 325 E. 12th St. looks just
aw ful. The sheetrock could easily be fixed up with a metal corner
bead and some dr y wall joint compound. Yet, like the “dumpster
apar tments,” it just stays there.

units, so that Toledano can raise rentstabilized apartments to market rate, a
complaint that has been raised by residents and echoed by Rudolph. According to Trissy Callan, who has lived there
more than 39 years, “Fourteen out of 36
units have been vacated.”
The Villager was unable to reach
Toledano directly for comment. However, in a statement reprinted in a Nov.
21 Cooper Square Committee press release, he said, “I’ve come to know my
tenants, and they’re wonderful people
whom we’ve developed good relationships with as human beings.”

Photo by Amy Russo

A view through a cour tyard window of an alleged “dumpster apar tment” piled with junk at 325 E. 12th St. Tenants charge that these
apar tments are never cleared out.
TheVillager.com

Anti-fur frenzy at new Soho Canada Goose store

Photos by Tequila Minsky

Angry animal-rights activists swarmed
the opening of Canada Goose’s new Soho
store on Thurs., Nov. 17, urging people to
“shop vegan.” The store, at 101 Wooster
St., sells super-warm down jackets sporting coyote fur-trimmed hoods, running
from $750 to $1,000. But People for Ethical Treatment of Animals members said
the coyotes are inhumanely caught in

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steel-jawed traps and then brutally killed.
Canada Goose countered that it only
buys fox fur from licensed North American trappers and only uses down that is
a byproduct of poultry farming, not from
live-plucked birds. In addition to noisily
picketing the store, the PETA protesters
even pursued some of the shoppers down
the street to their taxis.

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Please join us as we discuss…

Elder Law 101 Breakfast
December 6 at 10:00 AM

Petite Abeille
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TheVillager.com

December 1, 2016

11

Union Square rally against evictions...in Tibet

GLOBAL
VILLAGE
By Bill Weinberg

‘

S

top the forced evictions! Stop the demolitions!”
That’s what was repeatedly chanted, and what
the big banner read, at the spirited rally of some
200 at Union Square the evening of Wed., Oct. 19. But
this wasn’t about the depredations of dirty New York
landlords or saving historic East Village buildings from
being razed to make way for a luxury hotel. The large
type above these demands on the banner read: “Stand
With Larung Gar.”
Larung Gar is the world’s largest Buddhist sanctuary,
in a valley in the traditional region of Tibet — although
today officially in the Chinese province of Sichuan. At
the rally, activists stood with painted cardboard cut-outs
representing the monastery or Buddhist academy there,
and smaller outlying buildings. Other cutouts represented a bulldozer and truck-mounted wrecking ball, both
“driven” by activists wearing People’s Liberation Army
uniforms. Sitting below the display were two monks
in traditional robes, Tibetan flags draped across their
shoulders.
Protest organizer Urgyen Badheytsang, who just
moved here from Toronto to work in the Students for
a Free Tibet office on 14th St., related some of the history to me. The community was founded in the 1980s,
when post-Mao China started to loosen up, by the lama
Jigme Phuntsok, dedicated to preserving and reviving
the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It rapidly grew, with
some 10,000 small cabins today lining the valley walls.
These are what the Chinese government is now demolishing, claiming safety and overcrowding concerns. But
Badheytsang doesn’t buy it.
“It is political,” he said. “China fears the growing influence of Larung Gar.”
Founder Phuntsok died shortly after the first demolitions and evictions at Larung Gar, 15 years ago. But
now China’s authorities are proposing to demolish
5,000 homes at the site — fully half of the cabins. Residents are being offered cash compensation if they leave
voluntarily, but few have taken the bait. There have been
more than 500 demolitions this year.
On July 20, a nun at Larung Gar named Rinzin
Dolma hanged herself, leaving a statement saying she
could not bear to witness the destruction of the sanctuary. Since then, two more nuns have taken their lives in
protest of the demolitions.
And there may have been uglier methods still. Two
years ago, a mysterious blaze badly damaged several
structures at Larung Gar — amid a wave of apparent arson attacks on monasteries across the Tibetan region.
“China is guilty of genocide” and “Stop the genocide
in Tibet” were other slogans on signs at the rally. Another read: “China: Stop forcing Tibetan nomads off
their lands” — a reference to the forcible resettlement of
traditional nomads in Tibet and Inner Mongolia, and the
reduction of their ancestral grazing pastures. Speakers
also mentioned destruction of Tibetan lands by mining
and hydroelectric projects.
While protests for Larung Gar were registered in cities around the world that day — from Tokyo and Toronto to Santiago and Dharamsala, India, seat of the Tibetan exile government — Badheytsang attached special
importance to New York.
“China is coming to New York for the U.N. Human
Rights Council vote this month,” he said. China, Russia,

12

December 1, 2016

Photo by Jane Stein

During the protest for Larung Gar last month in Union Square, activists por traying Chinese demolition machines symbolically threatened to destroy the Buddhist enclave as a senior woman
pleaded with them to stop.

Saudi Arabia and Cuba all currently sit on the council,
and are all up for another term. “China does not deserve
to be on the Human Rights Council,” Badheytsang said.
“It’s the perfect case of the fox guarding the chicken
coop.”
But some expressed skepticism about international
intentions, even among nations that have supported
the Tibetan cause. Ngawang Tharchin — like many
at the rally, born in Nepal to a family of Tibetan refugees — now lives in Queens, and is general secretary of
Dokham Chushi Gangdruk U.S.A. That’s the organization of veterans of the 1960s Tibetan armed resistance
movement, in which his father fought. While he emphasized the nonviolent nature of the current struggle, he
expressed pride at this legacy. And while he did admit
the ’60s resistance movement received aid from the
C.I.A., his speech to the rally contained a warning about
U.S. motives.
“The [U.S.] government has not genuinely supported
our issue,” Tharchin said. “In fact, we know we have
been used in the past and they continue to use our issue
as a play card whenever there is political and economic
disagreement with China — which is not sending a good
message to the Tibetan people who have struggled for
their homeland for more than five decades... .”
Another speaker was Jenny Wang — representing
New York’s Taiwanese activist community. A member
of the Keep Taiwan Free group that holds annual rallies
for Taiwan to be admitted to the United Nations as an
independent country, Wang noted the so-called “three
‘T’’s” that are forbidden topics in China: Tibet, Taiwan
and the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.
Wang told the crowd that activists must have their
own three forbidden ‘T’’s: “We never get tired, we will
never be timid, and we are not afraid of time. We will
keep fighting as long as it takes.”
When I asked her why she, as a Taiwanese, joined
with a Tibetan rally, Wang responded, “We have the
same goal of self-determination. Enough is enough.”
And while I heard one participant in the crowd ex-

press support for Donald Trump as a “strong leader who
could stand up to China,” this was by no means the majority position.
When I asked attendee Kunsang Palmo why New
Yorkers should be concerned with Larung Gar, she tied
her activism on behalf of the sanctuary with her sense of
dignity as an Asian immigrant in Trump’s America.
“Maybe you are legal, you are privileged, you don’t
have to worry about hearing xenophobic comments on
the street,” she said. “But Trump has made all that much
more visible. It is a similar atmosphere faced by Tibetans
and protesters in China.”

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A clean sweep: A new vision for neater streets
By Corey Johnson

N

early every day, I see garbage
cans overflowing throughout
my district in neighborhoods
like Greenwich Village, Chelsea or
Hellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kitchen. Just as often, I hear
from frustrated constituents who express a growing sense that our city is
failing in its duty to simply keep the
streets clean. On weekends, these
problems only seem to grow worse.
When we cannot keep our public
spaces clean, it instills a sense that
our city is â&#x20AC;&#x153;in over its headâ&#x20AC;? when it
comes to performing basic functions.
Sanitation is one of those crucial municipal issues that affects both quality
of life and public health. In the greatest city in the world, we have to do
better.
The Third City Council District â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
which spans Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s West Side
from roughly Canal St. to Columbus
Circle â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is in a unique position when
it comes to sanitation. While our residential population is about 170,000
people, we have a daytime population
that often exceeds 1.3 million people.
As home to Times Square, the High
Line, the Whitney Museum, the Theater District, the Garment District
and so much more, we have a lot of
pedestrians on our streets every day.

That means a lot of waste to clean
up â&#x20AC;&#x201D; roughly 210 tons per year, to
be specific.
The men and women of the Department of Sanitation of New York
perform difficult work every day
with finite resources, and they do an
outstanding job. But with burgeoning tourism, a rising population and
countless weekday office workers,
the sanitation demands of my district
are too great for D.S.N.Y. to handle
alone.
Since taking office in 2014, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve
been diligently seeking new ways to
improve our garbage-collection services. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve funded the installation of
90 new large wastebaskets around
the district, with 22 more on the
way. And each year, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve allocated
significant funding to D.S.N.Y. for
additional garbage collection.
But more has to be done.
Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why this year, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be taking a bold new approach in the district. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve allocated funding from
the 2017 budget to hire the Association of Community Employment
Programs for the Homeless (ACE),
a nonprofit organization, to provide
comprehensive cleaning services to
our neighborhoods.
ACE is a truly inspirational organization, with a mission to help home-

What do you
want the
world to bring
into 2017 ?

WRITE
NOW

less New Yorkers get back on their
feet through employment training
and job opportunities. To date, ACE
has helped more than 2,500 homeless New Yorkers find full-time jobs
and start new lives.
Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, ACE knows how to
get the job done. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve already seen
them do an outstanding job at several parks and corridors in our district, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m confident
that they will handle this expanded
role with diligence and excellence.
As of Thurs., Nov. 3, we have
three full-time ACE employees on
our streets 40 hours per week, all 52
weeks of the year. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be emptying and bagging full garbage baskets,
sweeping sidewalks, and doing so
much of the tough work that it takes
to keep our streets clean.
While theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re starting off on particularly high-volume corridors like
Christopher St. in the Village, and
Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Aves. in
Chelsea and Hellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kitchen, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve
offered to be flexible to meet our
greatest needs on any given week.
Individual business owners and
building managers can also get involved by joining the Adopt-a-Basket
program, in which D.S.N.Y. gives
residents and businesses the tools
they need to supervise the wastebas-

ket on their corner and ensure that it
remains tidy. Call 311 or my office if
youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to join this vital community program â&#x20AC;&#x201D; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great way to be
part of the solution.
Of course, nothing can replace
the amazing employees of D.S.N.Y.,
who will continue to service our
neighborhoods, as well. To further
support their efforts, I have allocated $20,000 for additional mechanical-broom service (street-sweeper
trucks) and $20,000 for Manual
Litter Patrol, a D.S.N.Y. initiative
that focuses extra attention to highvolume areas in need of greater services.
At the end of the day, results are
all that matter. I expect these solutions to make a major improvement
on our streets. But I always want to
hear from you, the people who live
and work in the district, to make
sure that our city is living up to the
highest standards of services.
If you see a sanitation issue that
needs to be resolved promptly, please
let me know. You can contact my office by calling 212-564-7757 or by email at District3@council.nyc.gov.
See you around the neighborhood!
Johnson is
Third District

city

councilmember,

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&"' 0+&&+

A PARTICIPATORY INSTALLATION

What do
you want the
world to
leave
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behind
E STB ERY
W
in 2016 ?
GALLE 016

Editorial Letters to the Editor
Laughable left-wing pap
Shell games
This insane presidential election is over — well,
mostly. Recounts are going on, but are unlikely to
change the final outcome, according to experts. And
many hope the Electoral College will snub Donald
Trump as unsuitable to be president. He surely is —
but again, it’s a long shot.
Meanwhile, the election knocked many important
stories off the front pages, including, notably, the
scrutiny that Mayor Bill de Blasio has been under on
a number of fronts. Specifically, these include two
stories in The Villager’s coverage area: Rivington
House and the Elizabeth St. Garden.
What both of these issues share is that City Hall
made decisions on essential resources without notifying the community. De Blasio ran for election on a
promise of increasing bottom-up grassroots involvement in community planning — but both of these
instances flout that pledge.
A plan to build affordable senior housing on the
Elizabeth St. Garden was quietly tacked onto the
SPURA (Seward Park Urban Renewal Area) development project three years ago by Councilmember Margaret Chin. As is well known, earlier in her
career, Chin worked in affordable housing and is a
fierce advocate for it. However, Community Board
2 was never consulted about this scheme until after
the fact. On the other hand, the main SPURA plan
went through a lengthy, painstaking public review
process over many meetings at Community Board 3,
to ensure there was buy-in from all stakeholders. Yet,
after becoming mayor, De Blasio quietly O.K.’d the
plan for housing on the Elizabeth St. Garden.
After the community discovered that this property
was, in fact, city-owned, however, droves of volunteers championed it and have turned it into a thriving and vital open space. From local senior citizens
to Chinatown schoolkid gardeners to local “wiseguy” TV and movie actors, simply everyone loves this
garden. Plus, C.B. 2 has identified an alternative site
where 400 percent more units could be built.
In short, this whole process has really been a sham
from Day One. Chin and City Hall did a disgraceful
end run around the community. It’s hard to recall
such an egregious flouting of the public process. And
C.B. 2 has offered a solution far better than the current plan. The situation is maddening and frustrating, unfair and undemocratic.
To top it off, the de Blasio administration then announced it was “keeping its commitment” to C.B. 2
to redevelop the alternative site as a park — plus,
hopes to build some affordable housing there, too.
So the already-existing green open space that everyone wants to keep at Elizabeth St. would be shifted
to a far worse spot for green space at Hudson St.
(Since it covers a water-shaft site over the Third City
Water Tunnel, large trees couldn’t even be planted
there.)
As for the Rivington House fiasco, if city officials
who testified during a lengthy City Council oversight
hearing in October are to be believed, it merely fell
into the city’s bureaucratic black hole. In short, the
Department of Citywide Administrative Services
unthinkingly lifted deed restrictions for nonprofit
healthcare use, clearing the way for this valuable
resource — an AIDS hospice, essentially, a nursing home — to be sold off for private market-rate

To The Editor:
Re “Electors must dump Donald Trump or we’re
doomed” (Global Village, Bill Weinberg, Dec.
24):
I read Weinberg’s essay....pathetic, ridiculous,
mindless. That you folks give it so much space tells
me you have nothing better to fill the paper.
Ought not it be thought that someone might
support Donald? Would that be so painful to publish something that justifies Trump’s win? There
is much out there.
Weinberg is an old lefty without being able to
think. It’s laughable and not too sad.
I am still laughing that Trump won, and Clinton
is now forgotten, for all practical purposes. Amusing, this life.
Bert Zackim

It’s a little late now...
To The Editor:
Re “Revolted New Yorkers are in open revolt vs.
Trump” (news article, Nov. 17):
Too bad all these people did not show up in
Cleveland to join me in protesting Trump at the
Republican National Convention. ... A little late
now.
Also, too bad that the Democratic Party screwed
Bernie Sanders and pushed Hillary Clinton when
she clearly has a boatload of baggage. Even though
Clinton won the popular vote, her campaign strategy of spending the summer with high-profile bigmoney donors and not targeting the swing states
until too late put Trump in the White House.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump,
whose home is located in Trump Tower, in Midtown Manhattan, seems to have no concern that
his continued use of that location for his transition is causing massive security and crowd control
problems for the City of New York, Homeland Security and the Secret Service.
He said he wanted to cut back on government
spending during his campaign. Now, he seems not
to care about the security costs that are being incurred by his use of the Trump Tower location,
as well as the costs to businesses in the area and
the problems he is causing to others who live in
Trump Tower, whom he made profits off of when
they bought expensive apartments from him.

Ira Blutreich

Simply put, he should move to another location
as soon as possible and do everyone a big favor
and cut down on unnecessary government spending because of his apparent lack of concern for the
taxpayers.
John Penley

Burned up over Hell Square
To The Editor:
Re “There’s a reason they call it Hell Square”
(Clayton, by Clayton Patterson, Nov. 17):
Clayton Patterson has lived through the finest of times and the most despicable of times.
These are the despicable ones. The whole city is
a wealthy trust-fund vacuum of greed and realty
expansion.
What doubly hurts is to see entire communities of artists, writers, dancers, musicians, theater folks and activists torn up at the roots and
driven out of the city. Their homes then become
the overpriced condo nests of imbecilic trust-fund
brats and Internet airheads who spend the whole
week economically raping the city and pour into
Clayton’s neighborhood after hours to get vomiting drunk and cavort through the streets like Nazi
brownshirts on holiday.
What Clayton is saying is that the erosion of the
quality of life, its denigration into beer hall thuggishness and blockheaded drunkenness, goes hand
in hand with the decline of our cities into stomping grounds for emaciated Miley Cyrus lookalikes
and Liam Hemsworth clones.
What he’s saying is that the brainless and illiterate slumming biz bros who march into his neighborhood like they own it, and defile it with their
blood, semen, puke, blood, urine, voices, faces
and money, are invaders, intruders, who have no
right or reason to be there. What Clayton is saying
is: The ship is burning, it’s going down and none
of you, not a single one, knows how to swim.
Alan Kaufman
E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in
length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the
Editor, 1 Metrotech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn,
NY, NY 11201. Please include phone number for
confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the
right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and
libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.

Time to clean house!

EditoriaL continued on p. 21

14

December 1, 2016

TheVillager.com

Some presidents who really did make America great

TALKING
POINT
By Harry Pincus

O

n Thurs., Oct. 20, 1960, I
dragged my mother up to Eastern Parkway to meet John F.
Kennedy.
The scene looked like a Hollywood
premiere, with klieg lights and a platform, and banners of all of the great
Democrats. Eleanor Roosevelt was
there, and Mayor Robert Wagner, Averell Harriman and even old former Governor Herbert Lehman. They were flesh
and blood back then, just people, like the
thousands of us who stood freezing outside Dubrow’s Cafeteria, hoping to get a
glimpse of the next president.
But the motorcade was late, and there
was school the next day. I wept bitterly
as my mother dragged me back from
Crown Heights, down the cold and empty avenue to our little three-and-a-halfroom Brooklyn apartment.
After a few blocks, we saw some
lights and a caravan wending its way up
Utica Ave. An open car carried the next
president, perched atop the back seat,
enormous, bronzed and glowing. There
had not been a soul for blocks; only my
mother, Blanche, and I were there as a
welcoming committee.
John F. Kennedy loved kids. I think he
loved people. I ran up to his car, jumping
up and down, and his enormous smile
lit up the cold night. He laughed and
reached out to me, and his eyes touched
me with a story of pain, and joy, and
hope. His eyes seemed to tell me that I
could do anything, as long as it was the
right thing.
Kennedy had inherited great wealth
as a child, yet he fought to serve in the
military. The son of one of America’s
richest men was assigned to command
a small plywood PT boat in the middle
of the Pacific with a working-class crew.
When the boat was rammed and shattered by a Japanese destroyer, Lieutenant
Kennedy placed a torn life-jacket strap
in his mouth, tied the other end around
a gravely wounded seaman, and towed
him three miles through the Pacific to
a deserted island, thus saving his life.
Kennedy injured his already brittle back,
and he suffered. He also had colitis and
would later be diagnosed with Addison’s disease. He was told that he could
never enter politics because he was too
sick to campaign in a working-class district with flights of wooden stairs. But
Kennedy wore a brace, and laboriously
pulled himself up every flight, to show
the working-class constituents that he
was going to be working for them.
TheVillager.com

Illustration by Harry Pincus

In wishful thinking, the author drew this illustation before the recent
election, depicting two of our greatest American presidents, Abraham
Lincoln and George Washington, dumping Donald Trump in the trash.
Alas, it was not meant to be.

J.F.K. laughed
and reached out
to me, and his
eyes touched me.
When President Kennedy discovered
newly constructed nuclear missile sites
in Cuba, the world came closer to annihilation than we knew. On a dark Saturday, during the crisis, a U2 spy plane was
shot down over the island nation and an
emergency cabinet meeting was called.
The takedown of a U2 was supposed
to require a retaliatory attack, and cold
warriors such as General Curtis (“Bomb
’em back to the Stone Age”) LeMay sat
around the president’s table and urged
action.
The tape recordings of that fateful Saturday were released only a few years ago,
and it’s chilling to hear virtually every
one of the president’s men advise war.

When they had gone around the cabinet
table, it was time for the young president
to announce his decision. There was a
long silence.
“Let’s go to dinner,” said John F. Kennedy, thus saving the world from nuclear
annihilation.
When the crisis was finally over, Nikita Khrushchev, who had survived the
Russian Revolution, decades of Stalin,
gulags, purges, World War II and the
siege of Kiev, wrote a letter to the young
president. Khrushchev signed it, “With
Respect.”
Before Kennedy, the president was an
old man who had led the greatest military
invasion in history. He liberated the concentration camps, and warned us about
a great military industrial complex.
“War is mankind’s most tragic and
stupid folly,” Dwight D. Eisenhower said.
“To seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.”
My parents told me about a president
who could not walk, but led the nation
out of a Great Depression and through
a world war. This president was about
to speak at a Democratic Convention,
when he fell on his face and into a puddle of someone’s beer. But Franklin Del-

ano Roosevelt rose to survey a troubled
world, and inform the convention, and
the nation, that they indeed had a “rendezvous with destiny.”
Ronald Reagan was the son of a small
town alcoholic. He went to Chicago and
somehow broadcast baseball games from
a telegraph ticker. In Hollywood during
the Great Depression, he “held [his] own
with Errol Flynn and the Duke,” at least
until his boyish charm faded, and he had
to find another job. He became a union
head, and when the winds changed again,
he became a Republican. He learned to
put rouge on his cheeks and make a good
speech. But all the while, he had to work
for bosses, and he had to work his way
up. I didn’t vote for Reagan, but he had
learned a few things by the time he met
with Mikhail Gorbachev, because the
two came to respect each other, and they
made peace.
These presidents all were flawed.
Roosevelt returned a ship full of Jewish
refugees to Hitler. Eisenhower did little
for civil rights. Reagan broke the unions
and dismantled the social safety net built
by Roosevelt. Kennedy was reckless,
though I think he would not have pursued the Vietnam War.
But they all had jobs before they were
president, and they tried to summon our
better angels.
Some say that the new man can surround himself with great advisers, but
Harry Truman said, “The buck stops
here.”
As I write this at Spring St. and Sixth
Ave., a small candlelit procession of
Trump protesters are making their way
beneath my window, en route to the
nearby Trump Soho Hotel. Meanwhile,
millions are mourning the passing of Fidel Castro.
“Fidel Castro is dead!” Trump tweeted. Then tweety bird pointedly trashed
the aspirations of those millions, slamming Castro in a statement as a “brutal
dictator.”
We had just recently been elevated in
the eyes of the world for electing a man
who, as a child, was chased through
the streets of a Third World country,
because of the color of his skin. Barack
Obama hardly knew his father, yet rose
to become a wise and honorable world
leader.
They say that the new man doesn’t
read his intelligence briefings. Surely,
he will be tested by his peers, the other
sensitive souls who sit atop mountains of
skulls and deserts of bones. What will
he say to Kim Jong-un in North Korea,
Bashar al-Assad in Syria or Vladimir
Putin in Russia? Will they accept his
admiration and admit him to their club?
Will he trade Estonia for a golf course
concession?
In case of a problem, he could always
defer to his vice president, Mike Pence,
who does read, or his chief strategist,
Stephen Bannon, the great writer. PerPresidents continued on p. 16
December 1, 2016

15

Some presidents who really did make America great
presidents continued from p. 15

haps that renowned diplomat Rudolph
Giuliani can be of assistance. Or that
nice General Flynn. But what if they all
disagree?
Ignorance is not strength, and perhaps
this strongman is but a vacuum in a vortex of ambitious advisers, endless crises
and daunting complexities. Perhaps we
should sympathize with someone who
sits alone in the wee small hours, tweeting his anguish from atop a leather-upholstered throne / toilet seat beside goldplated faucets. A man who can only be
the boss will now be a servant of fate.
Certainly, if there is still a prayer within us, we should pray for him.
We vote for a president who will inspire us, teach us, protect us and represent us, before the world, and in the eyes
of our children.
So perhaps we should blame ourselves
for creating a culture of bicoastal elites,
who would forget the earth, forget the
poor, the handicapped, people of color
and the crapped-out rust bucket. We
make idiotic art, violent, hateful films
and obscene fortunes built upon the hot
air of worthless speculation.
So why, we wonder, did they vote to
bring our house down?
Pincus is an award-winning illustrator and fine artist. He lives in Soho.

Illustration by Harry Pincus

According to the author, this never-before-published illustration of three past presidents was a riff on the
three wise monkeys’ “Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil.” What would Trump be? “Tweet no evil” or
“Grab no evil?”

FREE FILM SERIES

BONHOEFFER:
AGENT OF GRACE
(2000 - 90 MINUTES)
What is a moral person to do in a time of savage immorality? That
question tormented Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of
great distinction who actively opposed Hitler and the Nazis.
This dramatic documentary tells the story of the young German
Lutheran theologian who resisted the Nazi regime. His
convictions cost him his life.

Join us on Tuesday December 6th at 7pm.
Church of the Ascension Parish Hall 12 West 11th Street NYC
Admission free: donations appreciated
GARY DORRIEN is an American theologian and Episcopal
priest. He is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and
Professor of Religion at Columbia University and he will lead us
in post-film discussion.

Stop shopping and start gathering
Reverend Billy’s new show inspires ‘activists to their actions’

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

Puerto Rican-inflected woman’s voice at
the beginning of the song,” said Reverend
Billy of Figueroa.
“About half of the Choir,” Reverend
Billy noted, “is of European ethnicity, and
half [those of] many ethnicities. We have
African American mothers in the Choir,
who really took us to the issue of being
safe on your own street,” and inspired
one of the numbers you’ll hear in this current run. Written by the group’s longtime
director, Savitri D., after Reverend Billy
and Choir members went to Ferguson,
Missouri in response to the 2014 police
shooting of Michael Brown, the lyrics of
“Get Home Safe” include:

M

arching as to war armed
only with wit, a white suit
and collar, and Elvis-meetsevangelist hair that’s every bit as enigmatic as the dome-topper sported by
our president-elect, Reverend Billy is
a preacher whose dire warnings about
the high cost of putting profit before
people no longer requires the leap of
faith it did in 1998. That’s when he
made his bones in the NYC performance art and activism scenes, with
a series of Times Square sidewalk
sermons admonishing “the imperialism
of dreams that is marketed so brutally
by Disney.”
Back then, even the most sympathetic
set of ears did not always process the
urgency of a plea to resist consumerism’s
siren call. The ensuing two decades, however, give credence to this comedic, fauxcleric’s vision of an American landscape
scarred by sweatshop labor, corporatecreated toxins, species extinction, chain
store domination, and an increasingly
militarized police force.
Vowed Reverend Billy of the coming
year, “Our politics is of us, ceding from
Trumpland. Religion, the industrial universities, the large institutions, they are
not creating safety. They are not creating
prosperity. They are not inviting involvement. We’ve been conned out of feeling
we have power. And so, we’re feeling a
return to the local, to what’s happening in
our neighborhoods. We’re ‘magicalizing’
the things in the foreground: What’s up
and down my street? What’s in my essential reach? Who can I talk to?”
With the list of things that cry out for
our attention longer than the list of toys
a particularly greedy child has already
mailed to Santa, a Sunday afternoon
spent communing with the clapping, singing, swaying, satin-robed Stop Shopping
Choir is a surefire way to charge your
eco-friendly batteries and double down
on your own resolve. “We inspire activists to their actions,” the right righteous
Reverend assured, citing “Gather” (his
current stage show) as a happening whose
music and mood will “whip the audience
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Working late on Thursday
Trying to stay awake
Parking lot is empty
Get home safe
Man down, brother down
Man down, brother down
PHOTO BY ANDY BLUE

to a froth. Then, we will all go out from
Joe’s Pub and we will do that thing that is
necessary to make change.”
Having just returned from North
Dakota, where the Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe is protesting the Dakota Access
Pipeline, the Nov. 27 performance of
“Gather” saw Reverend Billy delivering a message “devoted to the plight of
New York City’s hundreds of thousands
of undocumented immigrants.” Stop
Shopping Choir bass section member
Ravi Ragbir, who works on behalf of the
New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, led the
event. The theme of Dec. 11’s show will
be “Neighborhoods Vs. Gentrification.”
On Dec. 18, the run goes out with a
bang, via their “Great Winter Solstice
Bash.”
Like past Church pilgrimages to
Appalachia, Iceland, and the Redwoods
of the Northwest, spending time
at Standing Rock “changed us,” said
Reverend Billy, whose Dec. 4 sermon
will focus on how “the transformation at
Standing Rock — where it is impossible
to make a distinction between prayer

and protest, between singing and seizing sacred land — needs to be carried to
many towns and cities. Living inside their
principles for a few days, then flying back
from North Dakota, we feel the show
isn’t so separate from our life. We must
press up against militarized and consumerized citizens at all points.”
To that end, Reverend Billy deploys
his Choir like a Greek chorus that’s as
nimble and theatrical on the picket line
or the bank lobby as they are within the
limited confines of a Downtown cabaret
stage. “Yes, we’re a bunch of radicals
who sing songs and we go to jail a lot,”
Reverend Billy said, “but it’s also true
that we have some great artists in our
midst.”
Their ever-changing roster ranges from 35-40 musicians/singers at
any given performance, and currently
includes Broadway’s Amber Gray
(“Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet
of 1812”) and soloist Gina Figueroa,
winner of the 2016 Best R&B Song
Grammy for co-writing “Really Love”
with D’Angelo. “She’s that mysterious

Friday’s family dinner
Don’t be late
Can’t keep your mama waiting
Get home safe
Saturday’s the wedding
Girls dressed up
Watching out the window
Get home safe
And even Sunday
There’s no resting
Even Sunday
Get home safe
Man down, brother down
Man down, brother down
“Our singing and my ‘preaching’
comes out of the heartbreak we all feel,”
Reverend Billy said, in an interview conducted before his trip to Standing Rock,
and while still reeling from the disappointing election results. “It seems to me that a
lot of us who have let ourselves drift into
a sort of mushy liberal middle ground —
we’re suddenly radical. Our distance from
this right-wing government is profound.
We’ve always been cheerleaders for direct
action, but now we must console as we
BILLY continued on p. 19
December
December1,1,2016
2016

17
17

Just Do Art: Festive Holiday Edition
BY SCOTT STIFFLER

TREE LIGHTING AND
HOLIDAY SINGS IN
WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

What good is having a song in your
heart if you keep going in and out on
the words? With free lyric books at
the ready, The Washington Square
Association has you covered, as you
cover beloved Yuletide carols and
Hanukkah songs while accompanied
by the Rob Susman Brass Quartet —
at this pair of annual events taking
place at the base of the iconic Washington Square Park Arch. The stage
was set on Mon., Nov. 28, when a
45-foot Christmas tree was delivered in the extremely early morning
hours, then anchored to the Arch
for the season (it shines bright daily,
between 4pm and 1am). On Wed.,
Dec. 7 at 6pm, those sparkling lights
get their first go-round, when Santa
Claus distributes a copious amount
of candy canes, then leads the crowd
in an illumination countdown. Brass
Quartet and songbooks at the ready,
you’ll croon familiar holiday tunes
— then repeat that festive holiday
ritual on Christmas Eve, when revelers will gather beneath the Arch at
5pm to see if they can get through
their favorite song without the help
of those handy songbooks.
The Washington Square Park
Arch is located at the foot of Fifth
Ave., one block south of Eighth St.
For info, call 212-252-3621 or visit
washingtonsquarenyc.org.

WEST VILLAGE
CHORALE AUDIENCE
OPEN MESSIAH SING

A
nonsectarian,
independent
chorus that’s been the voice of the
people, for the people, and by the
people since 1971, the West Village
Chorale hosts concerts and community events from its base at that 1890
landmark, Judson Memorial Church.
This month sees three of the Chorale’s most beloved annual happenings, starting with a Dec. 4 audience
sing of Handel’s “Messiah.” Scores
are provided, as is piano accompaniment and intermission refreshments. Come lend your voice to fill
the atmospheric sanctuary as The
Chorale’s new music director, Dr.
Colin Britt, conducts. David Ralph,
on piano, serves as the baroque “orchestra.” Other upcoming Chorale
events: Dec. 11’s holiday concert
and Dec. 17’s Village Caroling Walk.
The Open Messiah Sing happens
on Sun., Dec. 4, 4pm at Judson

18
18

December
December1,
1,2016
2016

PHOTO BY KEN HOWARD

You lend your voice, and the Rob Susman Brass Quartet will give the gift of music — at Dec. 7 & 24 events
beneath the Washington Square Park Arch.

How can a jolly old elf with
the ability to circumnavigate the
globe in one evening get stuck on
the roof of the New York Fire Museum? There’s a good explanation
for that, and an equally satisfactory solution to this unexpected
predicament — when an FDNY
ladder truck rescues Santa from
his perch, then welcomes the him
into the Museum, where kids can
COURTESY NYC FIRE MUSEUM
pose for photos and give their gift
The
NYC
Fire
Museum’s
Dec.
4
Santa
Rescue
deploys
a ladder truck to
requests to The Man With All The
help a stuck St. Nick.
Toys. Don’t put on the kids on your
“Naughty” list if that Beach Boys
reference flies right past them with
HOTSY TOTSY BURLESQUE
the speed of a hypersonic sleigh;
best to just let them enjoy the ex- TRIBUTES THE “STAR WARS
perience (further heightened by
Christmas carols and other season- HOLIDAY SPECIAL”
A long time ago, in a far-out, far, far
al selections performed indoors by
away place known as the pop culture
John Clacher’s Fire House Band).
Sun., Dec. 4, 11:30am at the New landscape of 1970s America, confidence
York City Fire Museum (278 Spring gained from the phenomenal box office
St., btw. Hudson & Varick Sts.). The success of “Star Wars” got the best of
outdoor rescue is free; admission its creator, George Lucas, who would
PHOTO BY DAVIS FOULGER
for the in-museum event is ($8 for almost immediately disavow the deba- The West Village Chorale kicks off
adults, $5 for children. Reservations
a series of events with their Dec.
recommended: Visit nycfiremuseum.
4 Open Messiah Sing.
JUST DO ART continued on p. 19
org or call 212-691-1303, x13.
TheVillager.com
TheVillager.com

interminably long scene that has
very little purpose besides, perhaps, to fill time between cameos from Harrison Ford, Carrie
Fisher, and Mark Hamill.
To the rescue of this cultural curiosity comes Hotsy
Totsy Burlesque, an ongoing
series where skin meets satire,
in the form of loving, libidofriendly tributes to everything from “Doctor Who”
to “Harry Potter” (the first
two months of 2017 will
tackle The Muppets and the
“Ladies of Disney,” respectively). As for December’s
show, hosts Cherry Pitz
and Handsome Brad present performances from
Bimini Cricket, Brief
Sweat, Fem Appeal,
GoGo Incognito, Le
Grand Chaton, and
Rosie Cheeks, and Dolly
Dagger — names that
put the seemingly clever
monikers of “BB-8” and
“C-3PO” to shame!
Thurs.,
Dec.
8, 8pm at The
PHOTO BY BEN TRIVETT
On Dec. 8, Cherry Pitz, pictured, and the Hotsty Slipper Room (167
Totsy Burlesque crew make a Death Star run at the Orchard St., corner
of Stanton St.). For
“Star Wars Holiday Special.”
tickets ($10), visit
slipperroom.com. Artist info at hotsytotsyburlesque.com.
JUST DO ART continued from p. 18
cle that was the “Star Wars Holiday
Special.” Long the stuff of VHS-only
legend before the days of YouTube, the
thoroughly bizarre Wookie-centric plot
concerns efforts to properly celebrate
“Life Day,” and includes a musical number from cantina owner Bea Arthur
that’s actually pretty good, except for
the part where it’s bookended by an

PEN PARENTIS LITERARY
SALON HOLIDAY AUTHOR
MINGLE
Assure the kids that any bad behavior will be duly noted when Santa does
a final pass on his “Naughty” list —
then head to Lower Manhattan, with
the confidence that your baby sitter

won’t have to seek treatment for night
terrors. An evening of no worries and
the chance to have intelligent conversation with a roomful of other likeminded creative types: That’s the promise of
a Pen Parentis Salon, where inspiration
to keep (or start) writing comes in the
form of shop talk and readings from
successful authors, who also excel at
meeting the sort of ongoing deadlines
associated with raising children.
Before those readings and a panel
discussion, sip wine and schmooze, as
you enjoy music from award-winning
jazz guitarist Wilson Montuori. This
month’s featured authors are Eleni
Gage, Christine Rice, and Elizabeth
Isadora Gold. Moms and pops may
be the target audience, but everyone
is welcome. The series returns on Jan.
10, with an annual Poetry Night featuring Stella Padnos-Shea, Matthew
Thorburn, and Christina Cook.
Free. Tues., Dec. 13, 7–9:30pm, at
Andaz Wall Street (75 Wall St., entrance
at Water St., second floor). Light refreshments and wine provided by the venue.
RSVP to this 21+ event is encouraged,
via penparentis.org.calendar.

BILLY continued from p. 17

inspire. Sorrow and inspiration don’t
always go together, but we have this to
figure out with those who join us at Joe’s
— because we must act against racism
and violence against the Earth.”
“Gather” is performed every
Sunday through Dec. 18, 2pm, at Joe’s
Pub (425 Lafayette St., btw. Astor Pl.
& E. Fourth St.). Tickets are $15; $12
with the discount code HONEYBEE;
children’s tickets, $8. Food and spirits
served; no minimum purchase. Visit
joespub.publictheater.org for reservations, or call 212-967-7555. Get info
on Church of Stop Shopping activities
at revbilly.com.
TheVillager.com
TheVillager.com

THE ARChive OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC HOLIDAY
RECORD & CD SALE

PHOTO BY SOPHIE MOLINS

Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop
Shopping Choir aren’t afraid to get
their hands dirty, having returned
from a visit to Standing Rock —
where efforts to stop the Dakota
Access Pipeline are ongoing.

Sure, the event listing you’re about
to read ran in a recent issue — but
this is one of those rare occasions
when we don’t mind sounding like
a broken record. That’s because it’s
almost the most wonderful time of the
year — when lovers of LPs, groovy givers of global music, and Secret Santas
of all stripes can sleigh (okay, slay)
their appointed tasks at this one-stop
shopping opportunity. Day in and day
out, the busy elves at the ARChive of
Contemporary Music nonprofit library

and research center labor to collect and
preserve information on the popular
music of all cultures and races throughout the world from 1950 to the present. Having amassed 3 million sound
recordings so far, ARC’s noble Noah’s
Arc mission inevitably wracks up duplicate copies from record companies and
collectors — hence this holiday sale, one
of two annual events where the general
public has the run of the place.
Up for grabs this December are over
30,000 items: pop, rock, jazz, blues,
classical, and world music recordings; videos and DVDs; music books
and magazines; picture discs; original
vintage ’60s psychedelic posters from
the Grande Ballroom in Detroit; and
rare Fillmore East programs. Formats?
They’ve got 78s, LPs, 45s, and CDs
(new and out-of-print CDs start at $3;
classical LPs start at $1!).
Dec. 3–18, daily, 11am–6pm. At
the ARChive of Contemporary Music
ground floor office at 54 White St.
(3 blocks south of Canal St., btw.
Broadway & Church St.). Call 212226-6967 or visit arcmusic.org.
December
December1,1,2016
2016

redevelopment. In the process, the community was stripped of a key
resource that had been promised to it through the original deed restriction on this beautiful former school building.
During that October hearing, de Blasio announced that, to make
up for this colossal bungle, the city would build a new senior housing
development and healthcare facility on Pike St. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; beneath the Manhattan Bridge, with its constant stream of subway trains thundering
virtually overhead.
The shifty process that allowed that deed-lifting and propertyflipping trickery is still under investigation by Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman, for one.
Again, de Blasio responds with a sort of â&#x20AC;&#x153;shell gameâ&#x20AC;? response: Moving the community facility to another site, while

giving the better, existing property â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which overlooks a park,
naturally â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to a developer.
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to end these three-card Monte real estate scams. Stop
swindling the community out of its resources. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make any more
of these backroom deals out of the light of public review.
Friends of Elizabeth St. Garden will be protesting outside 250
Broadway on Dec. 7. Neighbors to Save Rivington House plans a
visioning session to let locals think about healthcare and nursing
homes and what they mean to a community. Meanwhile, a stop-work
order is still in effect at Rivington House.
The election pushed these stories to the side â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
mean de Blasio, Chin and the developers are off the hook. Speaking
of elections, de Blasio and Chin should consider how they are alienating voters with these two development projects. No question, it will
come back to bite them at the polls.

CALL NOW
646-452-2490

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December 1, 2016

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22

December 1, 2016

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Baruch soccer star among city’s best

SPORTS

D

aniela Zirpolo, a Baruch College Campus
High School senior, recently had the honor
of being selected to play in the 2016 NYC
Mayor’s Cup Soccer Championship on Nov. 20 at
Belson Stadium, at St. John’s University.
The 22 top senior girl soccer players from the
New York City Public Schools Athletic League faced
off against the top players from the Catholic school
league to determine the best of Big Apple high
school soccer. The P.S.A.L. players dominated, winning 4-0. Zirpolo, who is a forward, did not score,
but played well.
It was a great honor for Zirpolo, who turns 17
next month, to be recognized as one of the best soccer players in the city. She scored more than 100
goals during her high school career and as a team
captain led Baruch to its first-ever P.S.A.L. soccer
championship in 2015. In that season, she notched
50 goals, virtually carrying the team on her back.
During her stellar four-year career with the Baruch
varsity team, Zirpola, who lives in the Bronx, was
awarded Rookie of the Year, team M.V.P. and M.S.G.
Varsity 2015 New York City All-City Girls Team honorable mention. This summer she was selected to be
a member of a P.S.AL. all-star team that represented
New York City, which traveled to Spain for training
and competition in Barcelona and Madrid.
Her father, Carlo Zirpolo, said his daughter has a
strong all-around game.
“She has good ball skills and dribbling skills,” he
said, “and she is quick.”
He said that Daniela, who is also a talented basketball player, is still considering her options for college.

Daniela Zirpolo after the Mayor’s Cup Soccer
Championship at St. John’s Universit y, holding
the trophy given to the winning team.

KAWS courts cool, yet cause for concern

E

arlier this month, the city’s Parks Department
and Nike unveiled a combination “art installation” / basketball courts renovation project
in Sara D. Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side.
The park’s heavily used courts at Stanton and Forsyth
Sts. have been spruced up by pop street artist KAWS
a.k.a. Brian Donnelly.
Nike’s commitment of $300,000 to the courts made
the refurbishing and design possible. The ribboncutting ceremony included a youth basketball clinic,
speakers and a basketball tournament.
However, K Webster, a leading S.D.R. Park activist,
said the community process behind the project was
basically nonexistent. Plus, the invite to local community members to attend the opening event went out
very late.
“We thank the Parks Department for obtaining a
newly painted basketball court,” Webster said. “Personally, I think it’s kind of pretty. We would have
wished we had been asked in the first place about
such a big change in a park that has a very active park
coalition and a very reachable community board. As
a courtesy?
“We would have wished to have the neighborhood
invited and not be, yet again, spectators outside the
fence watching a rich corporation using a public park,
privately,” Webster said. “And, yes, we know children were brought in to play, and that’s fun for them.
Thank you. But somehow it’s not the same as asking
a neighborhood if you can have a loud, glaringly lit,

generators-running, private party in their front yard
past the 9 p.m. permit. It changes everything about
how it feels to be asked, to be considered, to be invited.
“Again, plain courtesy, sign of respect, for the decades of labor the neighborhood donated to change
this park from a drug-infested, pimp-owned place that
the Parks Department wouldn’t even set foot in — to a
place with pockets of utter beauty and joy?
“Oh,” Webster added, “and being sent an e-mail
two hours before the event doesn’t count.”
December 1, 2016

23

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